I love your videos. You state facts while throwing in jokes which makes your videos enjoyable. Keep me coming back to watch more. That entire bit trying to pronounce PBT was hilarious!

I learned quite a bit more from this video than I expected. Really great explanations!

This crushed my dream of using F12 as it looks amazing on the rear side, windtunnel effect

Thank you for those 65 hours of testing!

Nice video … keep in mind that the F12 fans predate the A12x25 So this might be why the A12x25 are beter (bit more development ect) But the thing that I miss in this video is noise normalized results And also how they preform at the same RPM (for example how the fans sound in comparison to each other are the same speed)

this is exactly the video i need. Been overwhelmed by noctua fans lineup... and this video told me everything i needed. i greatly appreciate the effort put into testing

Excellent video. I learned much, and this has informed my next purchase. Thanks!

Awesome detailed testing!

This is an amazing video. Kudos for this entire research.

Wow! What a good video, I came to demystify the Noctua lineup, I left with quite a bit of knowledge on PC air cooling I can definitely use in the future👍

Great. Now I just need 200€ to populate my case with A12's :D Joke aside: Noctua is one of the best, but IMO it's just too expensive...

Thank you so much for so detailed work you have done!

Awesome video thank for the info!

Much needed explainer!! Always wondered if the other noctua fan offerings, vs the a12x25 fans, are any good on AIOs static pressure/airflow wise, pumped to watch the vid!

Crazy video, Noctua should just use this as promo

Thanks for all the testing! Weird results though, Noctua itself says "In the chromax line, Noctua recommends the pressure-optimised NF-F12 for heatsinks and radiators and the airflow-optimised NF-S12A for case fan usage." Why would they recommend the two models when they are worse than their all-rounder? Just so that they don't stop selling? The only redeeming quality I can think of is the sound. One additional test you might've tried is case with nf-s fans running at 100% vs case with nf-a fans running speeds lowered to match the dB of the nf-s case. nf-a with low noise cable lowers speed to 1700 rpm but is still 2 dB louder than nf-s, so you'd probably have to run the fans at 1500-1600 rpm.

Excellent video, a blend of scientific rigor, comedy and swearing. I just wish the audio was better becuase honestly this is straining to listen to for half an hour

Very good video! Thanks

Thanks for the great video.

I think that to get the best results with the A12+S12 combo you'd need to do noise-normalized testing where the rear fan PWM is separated from the front PWM. Why? The S12 can run at full speed at a much lower decibel level than the A12 can, so at any given dBA level the S12 can run faster than the A12 can at the exhaust while the intake fans need to drop their speed even more. Not saying this would be viable for a benchmark, but because it may make the 2x A12 + 1x S12 a viable real-world build even when 3x A12 beats it in benchmarks.

great video bro!

Probably the best guide on Noctua fans like wow 😂 I’ve been telling ppl that the Chromax ones are the same as the standard F series

Great video mate thx 😘

I like your humor. Was considering the Toughfan 12, but I went with the Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax. For the price of 3 of those I would have gotten some nice RGB fans, but of course the RGB element makes the actual fan smaller in diameter. They will replace the super loud radiator fans which came with the Aorus 3090 ti with AIO. The fans that came with it can only be connected to the card itself and run at minimum 30% which is insanely loud at idle. I think 900 rpm. If they are good I might replace my "Corsair Air Series SP120" for the CPU AIO as well. Sadly nobody makes colored rings like Corsair did. Really like them.

what noctua cooler are you using on the z690?

Thanks!

Great video! I came here because people "laughed" at my S12A fans.. I have 4 of them dating back 10 years of which I bought then for $18 AUD each. They are still currently half the price of the A12x25 and at a time were even 1/3rd the price of them. The S12A's probably perform the same in the Corsair 4000D airflow so I'm not worried at all!

Whiche noctua fan is good for custom shroud gpu? I am confused with noctua and phanteks t30 120?

Thank you

I am a bit overwhelmed by the choices, which Noctua fan is the best for rear exhaust? 140 or 120 both work. Cheers!

I'f love to see you compare the nfa12x25 vs the 120 and 140 mm industrial lineup

Thank you so much !!!! hopeful you take in your hands a silent wings 4 to compare with the phanteks t30 and noctua

Greetings from Chile!! Osorno, Patagonia

Got all of them :)

You need a lav mic my dude. Great video.

Oooh, double you! So fancy! 😁👍

Thanks for the video, watched some ads as appreciation.

I subscribed at 65h. Thank you so much

nice content

I see an STS video: first i press like then i watch!

Great video thank you for making it. Oh buddy you need a wireless mike you sound far away and the room makes you echo had to turn up the volume high to hear you.

65 hours was worth it. Thanks

A12x15 or S12A for case fans?

A use case for the F12 might be as a case fan for GPU cooling, since it produces more directed air flow than the A12. In a big case it might help push air underneath the GPU and out the back through the PCIe slots, whereas the A12 spreads the air more evenly across the case. But in a high-airflow case that probably doesn't matter. Maybe in a more restricted case like the Fractal Define 7 the F12 *might* offer better noise-normalized GPU cooling?

well would you look at the an honest noctua line up review, hopefully they refresh their line up in a significant way.

It was sooo frustrating not to see the fans actually running in the video. I was very curious seeing how they ran. Maybe for your next videos you should show the fans in motion from time to time.

Based on the 22:10 chart, I do wonder if the S12A will really only win if it has virtually no impedance at all, which obviously will never be the case, unless you cut out the grill for your rear exhaust fan entirely. But I really don't know if the grill of a rear exhaust will give less or more back-pressure than about .4 mmH2O, and if it might give off less when one approaches silent operation, but I'm not sure. I still think the S12A might be a decent fan choice though for the rear exhaust, as I'm running it at 600rpm, which together with three different fans in the front as well is more than good enough for venting my 4000D Airflow with 300 Watts of load anyways. But the nerd/engineer in me is quite curious for how this graph would look for a near in-audible sound level, as that would not favour high static pressure in nearly the same way as high rpm scenarios. I also wonder where the average rear exhaust grill would sit on the static pressure and air-flow axes for each of the fans at that sound level. According to the 22:10 chart, the S12A and F12 have no reason to exist it looks like, and they certainly don't for heat sinks, but I have no idea at what sound level Noctua was referring to and how things look for low noise, and at what impedance a rear grill approximately is. At a higher rpm, the a12x25 has an inate advantage over the S12A obviously, as the back-pressure is a lot more relevant. Currently I'm having a mix of fans, but the plan was to have 3x a12x25 for intake and keep my S12A as the exhaust.

Like all your videoes and some of the mild cursing makes me lol. I just built a new pc using all noctua fans. Noctua u12a heat sink, 2 noctua 120mm nf-s12a and 2 noctua 140mm nf-a14 all chromax. I wanted my build all black then decided its to much black so I took the brown isolation pads off my wifes noctua fans in her case and added the brown pads to the black chromax fans in my new build and it turned out really nice looking. I wanted to try the be quite silent wings for my case fans but 1 of the 140mm fans had a bad connector so I sent all the be quites back and ordered the chromax fans. If it wasn't for that 1 be quite fan with the bad connector I would of kept all the be quites for case fans.

👍

I applaud you for pronouncing W as "wee". Everyone should do that. Saying "double-u" is just dumb.

Obligatory comment for 65 hours of work!

A12 fans costs a bit too much so I'm going with P12 fans instead.

i just bought the most expensive as usual the more you pay the better quality you should expect

Comment!

It's called PWM, not PVM.

PVM? PEE DUBBLE YEW EMMM

F-series is worst Shock result